I left the mews and started back across town to East Fourth and my attic apartment. Exactly what was I going to do now? I wondered. Money was, indeed, a factor. I supposed, as a last resort, I could always go back to Miss Van Woekem and tell her that I'd made a mistake. I considered this for a second before I decided that starvation was preferable to having to see Miss Arabella Norton or her despicable fianc6 ever again.
When I spied a cafe on the corner of University Place and West Fourth, I threw frugality to the winds and decided on coffee and a bun to cheer myself up. It was almost midday now and the coffee house was crowded. The noise level was intense and I looked with interest at the clientele. They were all young and dressed in an interesting diversity of styles, from flowing capes to wellpatched tweed. It took me a moment to register that they were all students and the building opposite was New York University. I took my coffee and bun to a stool at the counter which ran around the wall and sat there, listening in on as many conversations as possible. After a life that had been so solitary I gazed in envy at these tight-knit groups of people not much younger than me. There was even a sprinkling of women among the men—seriouslooking girls in dark colors and glasses, who were not afraid to speak their opinions and enter fully into the debates. If only that could have been me, I'd have liked nothing better. I sat listening, long after the coffee and bun had disappeared, then followed them out when a bell tolled and they hurried back across the street, clutching piles of books.
The walk home along Fourth seemed particularly long and empty.
Mrs. O'Halloran appeared by magic as I let myself in through the front door.
“You had a visitor,” she said. “Captain Sullivan.” She must have noticed the color draining from my face because she went on hurriedly, “Don't worry. I told him you were not at home, just like you wanted.”
“Thank you.”
“Has there been a falling-out between you and the good captain?” she asked, blocking my way as I sought to go up the stairs. “Such a lovely man, I've always thought. Made me wish I was younger and single.”
“Captain Sullivan and I were nothing more than acquaintances. He was kind enough to help a fellow Irishwoman get established in a new country. Nothing more than that,” I said. “Good day to you, Mrs. O'Hallaran.”
She looked disappointed, then suspicious, as I attempted to hurry past before she thought up any more questions. I wasn't quick enough.
“Just a minute,” she said, grabbing at my arm. “I've been doing a spot of cleaning out and I've come across some old clothes that maybe the young boy upstairs can use. He's beginning to look like a ragbag with no mother to keep an eye on him, and our son Jack was always very careful with his clothes. Not a harum-scarum like most boys.”
She darted into her sitting room and reappeared with a neatly folded pile of clothing that smelled strongly of mothballs. “Here you are.”
“Thank you. Seamus can certainly use them.”
I carried them upstairs. “Shameyboy? Look what I've got for you,” I called. No answer. Usually the children came rushing out when they heard my feet on the stairs. I opened the door of their room and found it empty. That must mean that they were off with their cousins again, swimming in the East River. I found this latest pastime rather dangerous and I'd expressed my worries to their father, but he didn't seem to mind. He seemed to think their cousins would keep an eye on them. Children did need to find ways to keep cool and have fun during the long summer days, and half the ragamuffins on the Lower East Side did it. Also, girls weren't permitted to strip off and swim like the boys, so my only worries for Bridie were that she'd fall in by mistake, be run over by a delivery cart or crushed under a pile of dockland freight. As I reminded myself yet again, they weren't my children.
I stood in the hallway that served as our communal kitchen, staring down at the pile of clothing. On the top of the pile was a boy's cloth cap—the kind of cap worn by every newsboy in the city of New York. A rather preposterous idea was forming in my head. I went straight into my room and tried on the cap. It took a while to get all my hair tucked into it, but once it was finished, an impish, cheeky face looked back at me from the glass on the wall. Excited now, I examined the rest of the pile. The knickers looked as if they might fit. I discarded my skirt and petticoat, then struggled into them. They were tighter than I'd hoped and came only to my knees instead of around midcalf, which was where most boys wore them, but they might do. There was no jacket big enough for me, but there was a white Sunday shirt. I tried that with the knickers and the cap. The result wasn't bad. I thanked providence for my boyish figure, usually so despised by fashion and connoisseurs of beauty.
Of course, I looked too clean for a boy. I've never met a boy yet who can fail to get dirty within half an hour of getting dressed. But that could be remedied. I'd wait until twilight and pay another visit on P. Riley, Discreet Investigations!